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Sunday, October 9, 2016

A community solar array being installed on the roof of Shiloh Temple at the center of the African-American community in Minneapolis. This will supply power to 40 families, helping them control their power bills. This is an example of community climate solutions which rebuild the commons and empower communities while reducing fossil fuel use.

Following is my talk given at the
Faith and Climate Action Conference in Seattle Saturday, Oct. 8.

Your coming
to this conference is an act of faith, hope and love, and this is exactly what
we need facing climate disruption that has spiked to a new level.As we gather, Hurricane Matthew has been
ravaging the Caribbean and Southeast Coast.The hotter seas and wetter atmosphere of global warming pumped Matthew
up to be the longest running category 4 or 5 on record in the Caribbean, and
the longest for October in the entire Atlantic basin.Haiti is devastated, and hundreds or maybe
more are dead, driving home the reality of climate injustice.The people who have done the least to cause
the problem are hit the hardest.

The climate crisis is careening forward as never
before.This year has seen global
temperature spiking one-third over the previous record, the second lowest
Arctic sea ice ever observed, and extreme weather events around the world
includinga plethora of 500- and
1,000-year floods, as well as killer heat waves and droughts affecting an
estimated half-billion people. Most of those were in India, again, underscoring
the reality of climate injustice.

Never has it been more imperative to keep hope alive,
especially in the face of a political environment that manifests two forms of
denial.One, the hard denial that there
is a problem at all.The other, a soft
denial that acknowledges climate change but pushes it into the background,
barely mentioning it at all.It is clear
that only an uprising of concerned and committed people will make a
difference.

The
challenge for the climate movement over coming years is to present solutions
that scale to this monumental crisis.It
will not be enough to be taking “steps in the right direction,” as climate
solutions are often portrayed.It will
be imperative to draw a connection between those steps and outcomes that can
credibly recover climate stability.The
crux of the issue, and this can hardly be emphasized enough, is that unless
this pathway is clearly drawn and understood, people will turn their attentions
away from climate to matters they believe lend themselves to solutions.

In short,
the greatest enemy the climate movement has to face is not the fossil fuel
industry, but despair.The movement
needs to keep hope alive by developing a solutions path that illustrates the
course from what can be practically achieved in the moment to what must be
ultimately accomplished.In making those
connections, success in immediate steps should be a springboard to the larger
accomplishments.Immediate successes should
be designed to change the story in people’s minds, which is the foundation of
all real change.

COMMUNITY SOLUTIONS FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE

This is the
goal of the 350 Seattle’s Community Solutions Project. The
effort is to identify immediate climate change solutions around which people
can mobilize and build power, which at the same time also help create a hopeful
story about larger, achievable solutions.Community solutions are about fundamentally transforming how we generate
and use energy, how we transport people and goods.The effort is also about how we shape our
communities in ways that promote social justice and climate recovery at the
same time.For example, one of the
absolutely most crucial community climate solutions is affordable housing in
areas well served by transit, and close to destinations such as work and
schools.In the spirit of climate
justice, this is about more than technology change, though that is a vital
element – This is about structural changes that deepen democracy and recover
the commons, without which real climate recovery is unlikely.

Community
solutions for climate justice aim to build community power and resilience while
reducing carbon pollution.To lift
people up while bringing fossil fuels down.In doing so, community solutions address two of the greatest challenges
confronting us today, climate disruption and the increasing wealth-and-power
divide in society.

The two are
related.The world has arrived in this
place of climate turbulence, after decades of warnings and solid scientific
research, because the political system has not responded in any way remotely
proportional to the crisis.This is
because power in society is increasingly tipped toward concentrated corporate
control and the interests of large shareholders.Oxfam calculates that as
of 2015 the world’s richest 1% own more than the other 99%, and the 62 richest
people are worth more than the bottom 50%.The share held by the top 1% has increased each year since 2010, after
declining from 2001-2009, indicating that the response to the global financial
crisis that began in 2008 has benefitted the wealthy at the expense of everyone
else.

A political
system hobbled by the power of special interests, especially fossil fuel
companies, has not adequately responded to accelerating climate disruption.To address the climate crisis, we need to
build people power.And we can begin to
do that here where we live.

This gets
to what I call the climate action paradox. It is clear that the spike in
climate disruption impacts that a massive national and global response on a
World War II-scale is needed.Groups
such as The Climate
Mobilization are working for this.And
a call for such a mobilization made it into the Democratic Party platform. Yet action at the federal level is stalemated.
The U.S. House of Representatives is expected to remain in Republican hands,
perhaps until major demographic shifts in the 2020s.The U.S. Senate may tip to the Democrats in
2016, but they face a very tough 2018 election map and are expected to lose
seats.A President Clinton will
presumably create opportunities for executive action, though not to the scale
required by the science and emerging impacts.The other option, well, let’s not go there for the moment.Arguably, until there is a sharp tipping in
national politics, implementation of climate solutions at the federal level
will not go much further.

Meanwhile,
the levers of power available to people are more at the local and state
levels.Even at the state level, a
combination of recalcitrant Republicans and climate squishy Democrats offers
only limited hopes.The major
opportunities for mobilization around climate solutions that truly scale to the
crisis are, paradoxically, at the local level.For those of us who face the stark reality of accelerating climate
disruption, and understand the science calling for rapid carbon reductions, the
situation can easily stir despair, and at least requires some leaps of faith.

We know
that purely local action cannot be sufficient to address the climate
crisis.But we also know significant
carbon-reducing actions are possible at the local scale. From the standpoint of
creating and validating replicable models to reduce carbon pollution, local
action is hugely important.In that
sense, local work connects to larger possibilities in crucial ways.The changes we must make to address climate
require transformation of multiple systems and infrastructures – energy, transportation,
housing, food, water – to name some of the more prominent.Each of those takes expression at a local
level.This is where we as people connect
with them in a real way, where the bicycle rubber meets the road.

When
envisioning transformatory changes in the way we live, it is easiest to do this
in terms of the places we live. In other words, when we try to wrap our heads
around what kind of changes we would make in a national and global
mobilization, we can start by imagining what it would look like here in our
home places.We need to build a local
movement for transformatory change that works with similar movements across the
country. We can push the needed national tipping point from the ground up with
a local mobilization for community solutions.This is where we can begin to create popular demand and political
will.The need is to develop and
communicate a credible vision of transformation, beginning where we live.

Let’s get
down to some specifics. I am going to concentrate on two broad areas that mesh
technology change with systems change.The first is community energy resilience. The second is the transit-affordable
housing connection.

COMMUNITY ENERGY RESILIENCE

A world
run 100% on renewable energy is coming into sight.Scenarios have been developed by a team led
by Mark Jacobsen of Stanford University that propel the world to 100% renewables in all sectors by
2050, with 80-85% of the task completed by 2030.The accelerating pace of climate disruption
evidenced in the recent surge in temperatures and extreme weather events
indicate such a rapid transition is required. The opens the way for a dual win. Not only can the move to renewables recover
the climate – It can also lead to broad democratization of the energy system and
widespread sharing of benefits to lower-income and people of color
communities.

“Wind and
sun are available everywhere, so renewable energy can be economically harnessed
at small scales across the country, state and community,” writes John
Farrell of Institute for Local Self Reliance. “This nature of renewable
energy, coupled with an exponential increase of renewable energy generation
here and abroad promises to transform the structure and scale of the nation’s
grid system.

“But the
greater transformation is the democratization of the electric grid, abandoning
a 20th century grid dominated by large, centralized utilities for a 21st
century grid, a democratized network of independently-owned and widely
dispersed renewable energy generators, with the economic benefits of
electricity generation as widely dispersed as the ownership.”

In Seattle
we won’t develop wind farms.Solar is
our best option. The form of solar that promises
greatest climate justice benefits is community solar.The National Renewable Energy
Laboratory (NREL) defines community solar “as a solar-electric system that
provides power and/or financial benefit to multiple community members.”
Community solar can be developed by utilities or private institutions, often in
a nonprofit model. Community solar installations are larger than typical
rooftop installations, and can range to megawatt scales capable of serving many
homes.

Rooftop
solar faces many limitations that count out low-income people and large
segments of people of color communities, as well as many others.NREL estimates that 49%
or residences and 48% of businesses do not lend themselves to solar
arrays.Many buildings lack appropriate
roof space.Renters facing a multi-year
payback period cannot invest in a system on a roof they do not own. Many
homeowners also do not have the financial capacity to afford a system.In addition, the long-term sites needed to
justify solar installations may not be available in areas undergoing wholesale
redevelopment of the building stock.

Community
solar overcomes these challenges in several ways.It provides a common and secure site for mass
solar installations.It allows purchase
of modest shares, often in the $100-$150 range, allowing people with limited
financial wherewithal to own a piece, including renters.Community solar owners typically receive
credits on their power bills for the portion they own, an arrangement known as
virtual net metering.

The first
community-owned solar energy coop in Washington, and one of the first in the
US, is the Edmonds
Community Solar Cooperative.This
nonprofit model started in 2010 and in operation since 2011. The cooperative
has 90 members who supported installation of a 23-kilowatt (kW) of solar array
on the roof of the Frances Anderson Center in two phases in 2011 and 2012.
Members bought in with a $1,000 “SunSlice” purchase that provides ownership of
a 100-watt share of the array, and is expected to fully pay back fully by
2020.The coop has built partnerships
with the City of Edmonds, Sustainable Edmonds and solar companies

A number
of models are emerging to create energy resilience for low-income people
through community solar.

The Northeast Denver (CO)
Housing Center provides a model that reduces power bills for low-income
people while creating green jobs. The nonprofit housing provider has installed
48 kW of solar panels serving 30 affordable housing units in the Whittier
Affordable Housing Project“in order to
reduce the electric bills of Denver’s most economically distressed families and
provide electricity cost stability for 30 low-income residents,” NREL
reports.The units are scaled to 85% of
average tenant annual electricity use, and in some cases cover 100%.The effort included a solar installer
job-training program for 15 residents.The installing company was required to use five on the project.

Another
model that helps families control power costs is Shiloh Temple in
Minneapolis.This year a 202-kilowatt
community solar array was installed on this African-American community church.Around 40 congregation families will earn
credits from solar production that will reduce home power bills.They had the option to buy in with a single
up front payment for 25 years of credits, or monthly payments lower than their
credits.Around 70% chose the latter
option.

Community
solar is being used to help keep housing affordable. Gateway Elton is a
project to develop 659 affordable housing units in New York City.Common areas will be partially powered by
over one million watts of solar. The
214-kW array on the first phase is the largest on any residence in New York
state.With an estimated payback period
of 5-6 years, and a lifetime of 25, the array will help preserve housing
affordability. Developer Hudson Companies previously installed an 80.5-kW array
at Dumont
Green, another New York City affordable housing project.

Seattle City
Light already operates five community solar installations.One is on an affordable housing complex run
by Capitol Hill Housing.We need more
community solar arrays here to build community energy resilience for families and the community as a whole.Community solar plants on community anchor
buildings such as community centers, schools, libraries, health facilities and
churches, backed by storage, could create community resilience centers. People
could charge devices during blackouts caused by weather and seismic events,
including crucial medical devices.These
facilities could also act as cooling centers that will be more needed as the
climate heats.

We also
need community solar in the city grid to make it more resilient. Seattle
already has a substantially clean hydropower supply. But climate impacts will make
hydropower less reliable. Seattle City Light projects this happening by 2030,
and even in 2015, wildfires cut off transmission of power from the North
Cascades dams. SCL points to solar as
the solution.And the more solar we
develop, the more clean hydropower we have to sell to the grid and reduce
carbon emissions elsewhere.

We can’t
talk about solar without also talking about efficiency, the cleanest energy
source. Since the Northwest began focusing on
electrical energy efficiency in buildings and equipment in 1978 it has saved
five Seattle’s worth of electricity, or over four times the generating capacity
of the Transalta Centralia coal-fired power plant, the Northwest Power
and Conservation Council reports. That makes
efficiency the region’s second largest power source after hydropower. The
Council projects that energy efficiency investments will keep power demand from
growing at all through 2030. But even then the council still projects Northwest
coal and gas power generation will pour 53 million tons of carbon dioxide into
the air annually. This is unacceptable. We need to actively reduce power demand with
efficiency while we ramp up renewables.We also need electrified buildings that replace oil and gas heat with
use high performance electric heat pumps.

Seattle has strong building codes, but they need to be upgraded
to make all new buildings zero-energy
by 2030 or earlier, requiring highly efficient
buildings that produce as much energy as they use. Seattle’s Bullitt Center
is a world-leading example of a zero-energy building, actually producing more
energy than it uses.

Seattle is
a leader in efficiency, but there are gaps.We fall short of where we need to be in terms of home and multifamily
efficiency retrofits.We lack a
concerted effort at building fuel switching, though a proposed building code
change would make us the nation’s first city to require high performance
electric heating in new and renovated commercial buildings.

An
important backdrop is the failure of the solar production incentives bill in
the 2016 Legislature.We have had the
best incentives in the nation.But they
sunset in 2020, so their effectiveness is starting to fade. A local climate mobilization needs to push
demands for community energy resilience funding by the city.The city needs to step up to do more, not
only through electric ratepayer revenues, but also through city general
revenues.We need to prioritize
efficiency retrofits on housing occupied by low-to-moderate income homeowners
and renters, and community solar installations that provide climate justice
benefits. Our community solutions effort will seek ways to build political will
around community energy resilience funding.

THE TRANSIT-AFFORDABLE
HOUSING CONNECTION

Now let’s move on to the transit-affordable housing connection. Because
our hydropower-centered electrical system is relatively clean, our region’s
largest carbon pollution problem is transportation.Around 44%
of Washington state carbon emissions come from burning oil in cars and other
vehicles.The Seattle
City Climate Plan aims to reduce passenger vehicle emissions 82% by 2030
and 97% by 2050.We need a
transportation revolution to achieve those goals.

To the extent we still use cars, we want them to be electric
vehicles, and we want them charged on renewable energy.But even if all personal vehicles were
electrified, traffic would still clog our communities and degrade the quality
of life, and continue the demand for natural resources needed to make vehicles.
In fact, electric cars have a higher
upfront carbon cost because of resources used in making the batteries. That
will be as true of self-driving vehicles expected in coming years as it is of
today’s cars. The best transportation option is to make a car-free life
possible, and high-quality public transit is key to that. For lower- and
middle-income people increasingly stressed by the cost of maintaining a
personal car, improved transit is crucial.

We need to continue to build up transit.The best transit systems have several key
characteristics. Transit stops are within a quarter-mile from homes and
destinations. Service is frequent, every 10 minutes or so on
well-travelled routes. And coverage is widespread. Railed options
including light-rail and street trolleys are increasing. Light rail is
seeing record ridership, and passing the Sound Transit 3 bond initiative in
this November’s election will be an important step forward. And sometimes just
improving bus service is the quickest and most economical way to build up
transit. Express bus service and Bus Rapid Transit lanes are coming to
cities including Seattle.

Light-rail runs on electricity.We also want to move buses to electric power. Electric trolleybuses that
draw energy from overhead wires are a familiar sight in Seattle, where a clean
power supply makes them a genuinely low-carbon transportation mode. Now
rapidly dropping battery prices spurred by the growing market for EVs are
spilling over into city buses. Heavy-duty electric buses propelled by
batteries are reaching service. Washington state in 2015 signed a
contract with Proterra through which Northwest transit agencies could buy up to 800
electric buses over the next five years.
King County plans to use the buses and recently completed a rigorous
test that demonstrated they are fully capable of replacing diesel equivalents.

The social justice angle is also hugely important.Transit service should be affordable,
particularly for low-income people. In Seattle the Transit Riders
Union has successfully gained the ORCA Lift pass offering low-income fares. The group provides a climate justice framework for building up
transit: “every human being has a right to
safe, reliable, affordable, and accessible public transit . . . for the future
of humanity and of the planet, we must move beyond the car- and fossil
fuel-based economy . . . the public transit system must be expanded and
improved, not merely preserved.”

Transit Riders Union adds, “We want high-capacity rapid transit,
including buses and rail – but not at the cost of cutting off those who need
public transit the most,” and maintains “that public transit must be paid for
by corporations and the wealthiest section of the population, not by further
squeezing poor and working people.”

350 Seattle and Transit Riders Union will join in putting on an
early 2017 public forum focused on how we can bring free public transit to the
Seattle area. Free transit exists at
many levels around the world.Washington, DC lets youth ride for free. Tallinn, Estonia has completely
removed the farebox.It is the largest
example of comprehensive free public transit in the world.Our forum will look at examples, and how to
pay for it with progressive revenue options such as an employer’s tax and a
local income tax on high earners.

We need to build up transit, electrify it, and make it more
affordable.But none of this will be
sufficient if our exploding housing costs continue to drive people out of the
city.The suburbanization of poverty is
a huge climate justice issue. Rents are rising
in Seattle faster than anywhere else in the US, nearly 10% over the last
year.Average rentals are over
$2,000.This is pushing low-to-moderate
income people out of the city. We are going exactly the wrong direction here by
forcing people who use transit the most out to suburban areas where service is
the poorest.One of the most crying
needs for climate justice in our city is affordable housing in areas well
served by transit.

Transit works best at a certain level of
density. A line with 20 buses per
day should have 4 dwelling units per acre near stops, and one with 40, 7 units.
Light rail should have 5-9 units per acre within walking distance of
stops. Thus it is important when expanding service to focus first on
denser areas, and to plan transit-oriented development to build up compact
communities around rail stations.But unless it is done with social justice at the
forefront, transit oriented development will increase trends toward urban
gentrification. It already is. Puget Sound Sage has lined out a series of steps to incorporate justice
concerns.

A recent report from Puget Sound Sage and Got Green identifies one of the
most important steps – community control of land and housing. These two
Seattle climate justice groups call on the city to establish strong goals for
community control through land trusts, non-profit housing development and local
ownership of cultural anchors and businesses. Sound Transit, already
obligated to devote 80% of surplus land around stations to affordable housing,
should do so through community-based organizations, the groups say. The
ST3 initiative will require that nonprofit housing developers gain first option on surplus land.

350 Seattle is looking to the leadership of climate justice
groups including SAGE and Got Green as we support efforts to build up affordable,
community-owned housing in our city and region.

REBUILDING THE COMMONS

We have looked at two areas where a community climate
mobilization movement can demand transformatory change.A community energy resilience initiative that
builds up community solar and energy efficiency, with concerted efforts to
target benefits to lower and moderate-income families.And efforts to make public transit more
accessible and clean, and linked to affordable, community-controlled
housing. There are others, including
local food, bicycle access and distributed, green infrastructure, to name
some. By focusing on community solutions,
we can move toward climate recovery while rebuilding the commons in our society.

In our fractured society, we urgently need to begin rebuilding
our common life.We can do this by
pushing for community energy,community
housing, community transportation, and community climate solutions in general.We can empower communities and lift people
up while taking fossil fuels down.We
can mobilize around a transformatory vision for the kind of world and nation we
want to make starting here at home, where we live.This is what community solutions for climate
justice is all about.Let’s join
together, make a movement, and make it happen.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Following is my testimony submitted to the Washington State Department of Ecology in response to its draft Clean Air Rule to limit climate pollution. Comments are due by 5pm this Friday, July 22. They can be filed on line here,or emailed to AQComments@ecy.wa.gov. Please take a moment to ask Ecology for a stronger rule that meets the scientific requirements to restore climate stability. You can also sign a petition for a stronger rule here.

When Washington Gov. Jay
Inslee in 2015 ordered the state Department of Ecology to draft a rule limiting
greenhouse gas emissions, he set a precedent.For the first time, a state government moved to cut climate pollution on
the authority of existing environmental legislation.

The groundwork for the rule
was the state Clean Air Act, which mandates state government to “(p)reserve, protect
and enhance the air quality for current and future generations.”On this basis, Ecology has drafted a rule
that is in a public comment phase ending this week.

Pollution
reductions called for under the rule fall substantially far short of what it
would take to actually meet the Clean Air Act mandate.The rule calls for annual 1.7% emissions cuts
from large polluters.It would eventually
cover two-thirds of state greenhouse gas (ghg) emissions.Thus the overall yearly pollution reduction
is more like 1%. That assumes that offsets, which polluters can purchase to
meet 100% of their obligations, will actually all generate the real emissions
reductions that are claimed.Many are
skeptical, and loopholes in the draft rule actually allow one unit of carbon
reduction to count for two units in some circumstances.

The
actual scientific requirement is closer to an 8% annual ghg cut, and this curve
is rapidly growing steeper.By next year
it will be around 9%.These numbers are
based on the target for recovery of climate stability, returning atmospheric
carbon dioxide concentrations to 350 parts per million by 2100.350ppm is where the atmosphere stops trapping
solar heat, the basis of global warming.The longer that CO2 levels are higher than 350ppm – they are now above
400ppm – the more heat the planet will absorb, and the more probable that
feedbacks will push global warming beyond human control – feedbacks including
loss of natural carbon sinks such as Arctic permafrost.

This
is based on science done by leading climatologist James Hansen and his team for
a series of lawsuits promoted by Our Children’s Trust.Youth lawsuits are being brought against a
number of state governments, the federal government and other national
governments.They argue, along the same
lines as the theory under which Gov. Inslee ordered the climate rulemaking,
that existing constitutional and statutory obligations to protect natural
resources are sufficient grounds regulate carbon and other ghgs.

In
one of the cases, eight youth have won a court order requiring Washington state
to limit climate pollution.King County
Superior Court Judge Hollis Hill said the state must issue a rule by the end of
the year.Though the state opted to
appeal the order, it nonetheless is the legal requirement under which the state
is now operating.

The
state claims it might need more time.But truly, there is no more time for delay.NASA
just reported that the first six months of the year were the hottest on
record, 1.3°C warmer than the late 19th century.That is perilously close to the 1.5°C target
set by the recent Paris climate summit to avert the worst consequences of
climate disruption.Even more alarming
is the fact this is 0.3°C above any temperature high previously recorded – a
phenomenal spike indicating the planet may be moving into a new climate state.

This chart from NASA illustrates the dramatic 2016 temperature spike. Never before this year had temperates gone 1 degree Celsius above the late 19th century level. The first six months of this year, temperatures averaged 1.3 degrees Celsius, an 0.3 degree spike above anything before.

NASA
also reported that Arctic sea ice was at record lows five of the year’s first
six months.During winter, Arctic sea icepack
typically peaks at 40% of its early 1980s extent. That drives growing heat. Ice sends 90% of
solar heat back to space, while blue water absorbs 90%.Global warming is already feeding global
warming in the Arctic, with a worldwide impact.

If
ever the climate crisis was upon us, it is upon us now.Yet the world continues to operate as if it
was business as usual – As if minor course corrections can possibly avert a
collision with the physical realities of an increasingly disrupted
climate.No, they can’t.This is why Ecology’s draft climate rule is
not an adequate response to the Clean Air Act mandate. It is not a climate
crisis rule.It is a business-as-usual
rule.

A fundamental problem is a contradiction in the rulemaking
process itself.When Gov. Inslee ordered
the rulemaking, it was done not only on the basis of the Clean Air Act, but also a 2008 law that
set ghg limits for the state: 1990 levels by 2020; 25% below 1990 levels by
2035, and 50% below 1990 levels by 2050.There is wide agreement that these limits are too low, including from
Ecology.In a December 2014 update
required by law, the department said (on page
18):

“Washington
State’s existing statutory limits should be adjusted to better reflect the
current science. The limits need to be more aggressive in order for Washington
to do its part to address climate risks and to align our limits with other
jurisdictions that are taking responsibility to address these risks. . . Ecology
concludes that Washington’s existing statutory statewide reductions limits
under RCW 70.235.020, especially limits for 2035 and 2050, need to be updated
through changes to the statute.”

Critically,
Judge Hill also found those limits inadequate to meet Clean Air Act requirements.
In a November ruling she said, “. . .the emission standards currently adopted by
Ecology do not fulfill the mandate to ‘(p)reserve, protect and enhance the air
quality for current and future generations.’”

Ecology
is required under law to submit updates in the limits to the Legislature.In its 2014 report the department recommended
waiting until after the Paris summit.In
her most recent ruling in April the Judge ordered Ecology to fulfill this legal
mandate. That is also part of the ruling that has been appealed.At a July 14 public hearing on the rule in
Olympia an Ecology representative said the department is exploring an update
and hopes to make recommendations by the end of the year. Everyone understands
the 2008 limits are inadequate.

Thus, it is
clear that to base the rulemaking on both the Clean Air Act and the 2008 limits
sets up a contradiction. If Ecology holds within the 2008 limits, it cannot
meet the legal requirements of the Clean Air Act to protect the atmosphere for
present and future generations. It’s either one or the other.

To say the
rule proposed by Ecology even meets the 2008 standard would be a misnomer.In fact, parallel to its coverage of
polluters, the rule would only hit around two-thirds of the 2035 target.The remaining emissions reductions would have
to come from currently uncovered sectors.

Chart from Our Children's Trust shows how far short the current proposed Washington state climate rule falls compared to the scientific necessities for climate stabilization. The green line second from the bottom depicts the stabilization pathway. The red line shows what meeting the state's 2008 carbon limits would accomplish. The proposed rule does not even reach the 2008 limits, only around two-thirds of them, reflecting its limited coverage of state emissions.

One reason
state officials give for holding the rulemaking within the 2008 limits, making
them a ceiling rather than a floor, is because they believe it provides more
solid footing to fight off inevitable industry lawsuits than basing the process
on the Clean Air Act alone.They would
rather win a 1% annual pollution reduction than lose with a requirement closer
to scientific necessities.But just how
solid a groundwork the 2008 law actually provides is open to question.In 2015 State Sen. Doug Ericksen, the oil
industry’s best friend in Olympia, asked the state attorney general his opinion
on what the law actually required.

The AG
responded that it places no requirement on the Legislature.“There is no language in the statute
requiring the legislature to create a program to achieve greenhouse gas
emission reductions.” Neither does it
provide a legal ground to sue the state if it does not meet the limits.The law “does not expressly create a cause of
action for obtaining a court order requiring that the greenhouse gas emission
reductions identified in that statute be enforced.” Nor can anyone collect
damages for failure to reach the limits. “There is no language in RCW
70.235.020 that expressly creates a cause of action for damages against the
state for a failure to achieve the greenhouse gas emission reductions
identified in that statute.”

Certainly
any lawsuit brought by the oil industry and other interests will cite that AG
opinion to undermine the legal authority of the 2008 law in the
rulemaking.They will argue the law is
essentially toothless, and have a basis on which to make that case.The Clean Air Act authority is far more
solid, and really meeting its mandate would require much more than the business
as usual rule now proposed by Ecology.

These are
legal points, and they are important.But beyond the legal, technical and bureaucratic framework in which this
rule is conceived, another force is at play.It was evident in the July 14 Ecology hearing when person after person
placed the issue in the overriding moral context.Around 24 people had been fasting the three
days before, mostly parents and grandparents, to ask for a rule worthy of our
children.I was one of them.I concluded my testimony with this:

“The
ultimate test of any climate policy is what happens on this planet.What will the world look like in 44 years
when my 19-year-old daughter is my age?I fear it will be a nightmare world in which civilization is breaking
down.The longer we delay acting in
proportion to the crisis, the more likely this catastrophic future becomes.

“I implore
you, as people I know are aware of these facts, and as concerned about them as
I am, to listen to your heart and enact a rule to save our children’s generation.It is up to us to act now in proportion to
the crisis we face.”

Once again,
I make that call to Ecology, and the governor.This is no longer a business-as-usual world. We need a climate crisis
rule for a climate crisis world.Please
give us one.

About Me

I have worked in journalism and advocacy since 1978. I took part in the Northwest ancient forest movement from its early days in the mid-1980s and was a pioneer in the Green City/Urban Sustainability movement, jumping in during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1994 I was editor of Cascadia Planet, one of the first 11,000 websites on Earth, and one of the very first bioregional sites. From 1998-2013 I worked for a climate group I helped co-found called Climate Solutions. I also co-authored "Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change," with Guy Dauncey. Now I work independently to forward solutions to climate change and global sustainability through my practice, MROC. The Cascadia map on the page banner and in my profile photo is by David McCloskey of Cascadia Institute. To order a fully detailed Cascadia map go to http://www.marshamccloskey.com/cascadiamap.html.